Five Times the Doctor's Fam Suspected She Had Tentacles, and One Time
by 6s-and-7s
Summary: Five Times the Doctor's Fam Suspected She Had Tentacles, and One Time They Were Proven Right Or, how to tell when your best friend is a little more alien than you ever suspected.
1. 1 - Mesopotamia

They're in Mesopotamia, sometime in the eighteenth century BC. The Doctor is chattering on about Hammurabi's Code, how it was the first real system of justice, how she had helped carve it into that big stone monument over there, back when she wore a leather jacket.

Ryan wasn't really listening. The Doctor tended to talk a lot of nonsense about herself. He was more interested in the city around them. This was about the furthest back the Doctor had ever taken them, except that one time when they'd wound up in the Ice Age. That didn't count, though, because there hadn't been any people, or buildings, or anything like that. There hadn't been much of anything, really, except snow and hungry sabretooth tigers.

Here, though. Blimey. It was like another planet, but knowing it was Earth… it was hard to reconcile, and he felt almost drunk on the paradox. It felt good, being here. More pure, more innocent than his own time. This lot hadn't invented nukes, nor guns, not even trash telly. It felt like a paradise.

And then he saw some bloke grab a lady's bum, and it all fell away. They might not have all the tech of his time, but it was still a long way from utopia. Maybe farther than 2019 was. He took a step in their direction, but they were too far away, and he didn't quite know what he'd say if the perv was right there. The guy was already running. Ryan couldn't do anything but watch.

So he got a great view of the guy running right into a fruit stand that hadn't been there a minute ago. Figs and apricots went flying as the perv faceplanted into the stuff. Almost immediately, he was faced with the fruit vendor, the lady, and her husband, all of them yelling furiously.

He turned around to point the scene out to his friends, but stopped. The Doctor was looking too. She glanced at him and gave a secretive grin, like she'd just done something very clever. But she'd only been looking, hadn't she?

He didn't say anything about it to Graham and Yaz. He didn't know what he'd even say. It wasn't important, anyway.


	2. 2 - The TARDIS Library

"Graham!"

"Huh?" Graham blinked himself out of his stupor and set down his book. The Doctor was staring at him, quite put out. "Whassamatter, Doc?"

"What," she said, gesturing to the book, "is that?"

He stared down at it. "Er, a book."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Graham, I saw that. What book, though?"

"Er, The Shadow Out of Time , I think. H.P. Lovecraft."

She heaved a massive sigh. "Yeah, again, I can see that."

"Well, then, why'd you ask?" he said defensively, sitting up a bit straighter.

"It was rhetorical! I thought you had better taste than that, Graham."

He frowned. "What's so bad about Lovecraft? I read 'im back when I was a kid, y'know."

"Well, he's a massive racist, for a start," the Doctor said. "Twisted up in his own head, emotionally constipated, afraid of everything new. That's old 'Hates Progress' Lovecraft for you."

Graham frowned. "I thought you tried to see the best in folks."

"That was seeing the best in him," the Doctor said acidly. "I haven't thrown that book against a wall yet."

He let out a breath. "Huh. What'd Lovecraft ever do to you?"

The Doctor's frown deepened. "Slander. Pure and simple. He wrote me into one of his gross, misanthropic stories, an' now it's gotten to be some kind of big deal."

"Really? He wrote about you?" Graham said, sitting up straighter. "Can't see you in any of his stuff."

She chuckled, some of the bitterness fading. "Oh, it was awhile ago. I've changed a lot over the years, Graham, believe me."

"Oh, go on, tell us who you are," he said. "Er, Randy Carter or whatever. Herbert West."

"Herbert West?" She laughed. "I'm not sure I want to tell you, now."

"Please?"

She turned to leave the library, but paused at the door. "Oh, come on, Graham. Technological whiz, zipping all over the planet, looks like a human, always has a bunch of folks following them around… Does the name 'Nyarlathotep' ring any bells?" she asked. She turned back and winked before jaunting off.

Graham sat in his overstuffed armchair, suddenly gripped by a powerful fear. "Right," he said. "I reckon that's enough Lovecraft for awhile. Where's Alice in Wonderland in all this lot?"


	3. 3 - The Carnival Queen

They're on a spaceship. A space cruise liner, actually; the Carnival Queen . The Doctor hadn't thought much of the name, said it was some kind of Time Lord boogeyman. Boogeywoman?

Of course, that wasn't quite the most important thing about the pleasure cruiser. The fact that there were nearly three thousand passengers aboard wasn't it either, though it was much closer. No, the most important thing about this ship was the energy creature that was draining straight from the life support systems.

Graham and Ryan had been dispatched to scrounge up a list of parts for the Doctor's plan. Yaz, meanwhile, was busy helping the Doctor and the shipboard AI reroute the energy creature somewhere less imminently fatal.

What this job mainly consisted of was standing around awkwardly while the Doctor fussed with a lot of wires and yelled at the AI. "Come on, Helen, you've got to work with me here!"

"I'm trying , Doctor," the screen said in its funny, modulated voice. "But we cannot have this creature feeding off the energy in the pool heaters! It is Against Corporate Policy! The Customer Is Always Right!"

"The customer is about to be floating in the vacuum of space, Helen! You know what's colder than a chilly pool? The void, Helen!"

"..." said Helen.

"Ugh. You know, you're a lot less helpful than my Helen was. Y'know, she was a Sinclair, too. Wonder if she was related to Ryan at all? Or Izzy."

"What about the antigrav room?" Yaz put in.

"Power cannot be shut off-"

"Helen," Yaz said. "Gravity's already failing all over the ship. I promise, if any guests want to go for a float right now , they can do that."

There was a long silence. "...Confirmed," Helen agreed. "Very well."

The Doctor shot her a grateful look, and began running her fingers through the wires. "Pass me that voltmeter, Yaz, and the wirecutters."

The top of the control panel was removed, and the Doctor went to work, pulling out wires, snipping them, measuring the power all at once.

Wait.

If the Doctor was holding wires in one hand, and wirecutters in another hand, and the voltmeter in another hand…

She blinked, and the Doctor definitely only had two hands, definitely wasn't holding the voltmeter.

She blinked again, and the Doctor definitely only had two hands, definitely wasn't holding the wirecutters.

She glanced away and let her eyes unfocus. She could just see three limbs moving over the open panel, much faster than should have been possible.

She was about to say something when Ryan stumbled in, hauling along a chain of paperclips, a gumball machine, and three forks.

"Hoy, Doc," he gasped. "We got everything you wanted, but Graham can't get all the shuffleboard gear up the stairs."

"Yaz, can you go and help him?" the Doctor asked, not looking up from her work. "I'd go, but after all, I've only got two hands."


	4. 4 - Lunch with Jo

The Doctor was talking with someone she's just run into at the restaurant- another blonde woman, much older than the Doctor but apparently just as cheerful and exuberant.

"What d'you reckon?" Ryan asked. "Someone famous?"

"I've never seen her before," Graham said.

"Me neither."

"Doesn't mean anything," Ryan said. "She might be famous in the future. Rosa Parks wasn't famous when we met her."

"I think she might be running out of time on that fifteen minutes," Graham said. "She's got to be at least as old as I am. Older, I bet."

"Yeah, but I reckon she's in better shape than you," Ryan said.

Graham looked a bit indignant, but then shrugged. "True enough," he said. "Looks like we'll be finding out soon enough, here they come."

The Doctor was indeed leading the other woman over, her smile as bright as a searchlight. "Fam, I'd like you to meet my old friend, Jo Grant- sorry, Jones. She used to travel with me, back in the day! Jo, this is my fam, Yaz, Graham, and Ryan."

"Hello," said Jo, smiling at each of them in turn. "It's very nice to meet you all. The Doctor invited me to lunch with you- I hope you don't mind?"

A chorus of 'not at all' answered her, and Jo giggled, sliding gracefully into a chair. Then, she paused, and looked rather surprised. "Dear me, I've forgotten my purse. Doctor, would you fetch it out of my car for me?"

The Doctor faltered and seemed ready to object, but she melted under Jo's gaze. "Blue Prius?" she asked, and Jo nodded. "Right. Back in a jiff!"

Jo's eyes sparkled with mirth as the Doctor jogged off. "She won't be, you know," she murmured to the others. "I parked six blocks away."

Yaz grinned. "Nice. So, when did she travel with you, then?"

"Oh, back in the day," Jo said vaguely. "Around nineteen-" she was cut off as the man at the next table sneezed explosively. "Er, yes. The UNIT days, you know. Back when she was a grumpy old man with a big nose and a velvet cape."

Ryan frowned. "Say again?"

"Oh! Hasn't she mentioned regeneration yet?" Jo asked. "Basically, whenever one of her lot is dying, they go up in a massive burst of energy, transforming every cell of their body. I've met… four of the others, now. The first three, and the eleventh, and now this one."

"So… she just… changes?" Yaz said slowly.

Jo nodded. "Oh, yes. I've never been there to see it happen, but I've had it described to me. Time Lords are very good at having those extra biological tricks up their sleeves, you know. Spare heart, psychic powers, extra-dimensional tenta-"

"Extra dimensions?" Graham repeated.

Jo looked instantly contrite. "Oh dear, hasn't she told you about- well, she wouldn't, poor dear. I think she's rather embarrassed about them. Least said, soonest mended, I think. Why don't you all tell me about yourselves, now?"

They tried to push further, but Jo's lips were sealed. "I'll tell you what," she said. "I will tell you about the time I caught the Doctor getting a backrub from his 'old archnemesis', the Master, how about that?"

This proved to be an acceptable substitute, much to the Doctor's chagrin when she returned.


	5. 5 - Vishilli IV

They had landed on the planet Vishilli IV, a beautiful, tranquil place. The sky was a pale orangey-pink, and filled with singing jellyfish. Well, not jellyfish exactly. Not quite singing, either. The music filled your brain, a bit like having a song stuck in your head except nice.

"What d'ya think, fam?" the Doctor asked, spinning around suddenly with a bright smile.

Ryan shrugged. "I dunno much about music. I like it, though."

Graham glanced around. "It's nice," he said. "But I keep waitin' for the other shoe to drop. We never go anywhere this nice without some alien loony tryin' to muck it all up."

Yaz gave the Doctor a quick one-armed hug. "I love it," she said.

"Glad to hear it," the Doctor said, hugging Yaz back. Then something caught her eye and she gasped. "Look! Some of them are forming a fluther!"

The others turned to look. Indeed, several of the sky-jellies were mobbing together. Graham took a step back. "Is that… good?" he asked.

"Is that good?" the Doctor asked, staring at him intensely. "No, Graham. It's not good."

"Oh," said Yaz, taking a step back as well.

The Doctor suddenly grinned, bright as the sun. "It's brilliant ."

She took off running toward the slowly rotating sphere of jellies. "Jellyfish dance party! Woo!"

The others watched as she ran through the purpley-blue miasma and into the center.

Ryan shook his head. "I'm out."

"Yeah, same 'ere," Graham agreed.

Yaz cocked her head. "Awfully pretty, though," she said.

"Yeah, there is that," Ryan agreed. He paused and peered a little closer. "Hey, I can see the Doctor in there!"

"Really? Where?" Yaz asked.

"Right…" Ryan moved right next to Yaz and pointed. "There."

"Oh, right!"

"Yeah, I see her too," Graham said. "Funny, though. She look any taller to you lot?"

Ryan shrugged. "Yeah, kinda. Probably just a trick of the light, though, with all those jellyfish in the way."

Yaz frowned. "Yeah… trick of the light," she said.

They watched for a minute. "Did… did her coat always move like that?" Graham asked hesitantly.

"...No…" Yaz said. "No it did not."

"She definitely looks taller now," Ryan said.

"Her legs look a little like, er…" Yaz trailed off.

"Tentacles," Graham concluded. "Yeah, I had got that impression, as well."

"And her hair's the same way," Ryan said.

"...Y'know," Yaz said. "I don't think I ever told you about what I saw on the Carnival Queen , did I?"

"Now you come to mention it…" Graham said

"Yeah. Meetin' in Graham's room when we get back to the TARDIS," Ryan agreed.

Graham glanced away from the jellyfish swarm to frown at Ryan. "Why my room? If you're calling it, why not your room?"

"Your room has enough chairs for all of us. I mean, if you wanna sit on my bed…"

"My room it is," Graham agreed.

Yaz was still staring. "It's actually… really pretty," she murmured.

The others looked back. "I mean…" Graham trailed off.

"Yeah," Ryan said. "She really is."

Eventually, the jellyfish dispersed, first in clumps here and there, and then scattering to the winds one by one. The Doctor's shadowy form grew smaller and smaller, more and more humanoid, clearer and sharper. Eventually, all that was left was a short, blonde woman in a big coat still dancing at the top of a hill.

" -your groove thing, shake your- " She stopped and scrunched her face. "Oh, are they gone already?"


	6. 1 - Stonehenge

Yaz probably ought to have been a bit more afraid of the Doctor, now. She didn't have any actual proof that she was some kind of tentacled thing in disguise, but the circumstantial evidence was mounting. On the other hand, it's hard to be afraid of someone that you've seen save entire planets, civilizations, and your own life time and again.

It was also a bit hard to be afraid of anyone after you caught them singing 'Super Trooper' into a hairbrush, or stuffing their mouth with custard creams in the dead of night.

If anything, most of the time she worried more for the Doctor than about her. She had a remarkable ability to find trouble in the most unlikely of places, after all. She had found alien artifacts in Lancashire, discovered Daleks among the daisies at the Chelsea flower show, and on one occasion, had done battle with some bloke called Michael Grade at the BBC.

So, dealing with some kind of time distortion at Stonehenge seemed almost normal. It wasn't great weather for it, of course, but that was just as well, really. No one but the Doctor actually knew what a time distortion was, or how to fix it, but the fewer tourists they had to explain themselves to, the better.

Ryan pulled open the TARDIS doors. "Hey, uh, Doctor? You sure this is the right spot? 'Cos I don't see any henge 'round here."

The Doctor pulled up on a few levers. "I parked us a good mile or so away. Can't be too careful with this sort of thing, after all. I remember one time in San Francisco, I had to use her to stop up a fractured reality, and she still won't go back there."

The TARDIS growled and the Doctor patted the console. "There, there," she said. "Nasty breach in the laws of the universe is well away from you."

Graham frowned. "A mile away, Doc? We've got to walk all that way, and back?"

"Chin up, Graham," Yaz said. "We can go for lunch once we get back, can't we Doctor?"

The Doctor hesitated, one hand on the last lever. "You know," she said suddenly, "you lot may as well stay here. Have lunch on your own. Time disruptions," she made a face. "Boring things. Won't be ten minutes fixing it."

Ryan and Yaz exchanged glances. The Doctor, discouraging them from tagging along? That wasn't just weird, it was worrying. "Nah," said Ryan. "We'll keep you company on the walk over. Good exercise, that is."

"Nice and brisk," Yaz added. "Lovely day for a walk."

Graham puffed himself up. "Well, I'm not about to stay here by myself. I'll just go get my jacket."

"Oh, right," the Doctor said. "Brilliant. Walking to Stonehenge." She smiled, but it lacked its usual brightness.

The walk there took about twenty minutes. It would've taken less, but the Doctor kept getting distracted by interesting clouds, and Graham kept finding pebbles in his shoes. They got almost to the perimeter when the Doctor held out an arm. "This far," she said. "No farther. Not any of you, alright?"

Ryan held up his hands and took a step back. "Alright. Cool."

Graham squinted at the ancient monument. "I don't see nuffing," he said. "What's it look like, this time whatsit?"

The Doctor nodded. "It's hard to see for non-time sensitive species," she agreed. "Most humans probably wouldn't see it at all, not until they'd walked into it."

"Like a spider web?" Yaz asked.

"If a spider web were made of microscopically thin, sharp razor blades, yes," the Doctor said. "Just like a spider web."

Ryan quietly took another step back. Graham took several paces.

"You lot, though, you're time travelers," the Doctor said. "If you look, if you tilt your head and squint, you should see something."

Yaz turned her head until the henge was just barely floating in her peripheral vision. "You know," she said slowly, "I think I can. It's all… crystally."

"Yeah, that's about right," the Doctor agreed. "Of course, time distortions can have all kinds of weird effects. For example…" she pulled a rock out of her pocket and bunged it into the space within. It hit one of the edges of the crystal-looking thing, and then…

The top half of the rock hurtled onward. The bottom half stayed in midair, perfectly still. It had been split cleanly in two.

Ryan gulped as the top half of the rock hit another almost-visible barrier and crushed itself to powder. "Right. Not going in there anytime soon."

"Yaz, hold my coat," the Doctor said. "I'm going in."

"What?" Yaz asked.

"Doc, you can't! You'll be cut to ribbons!" Graham said.

"Please." the Doctor rolled her eyes. "You lot can't see the edges, but I can. Time Lord, alright? I'll be careful, trust me."

"Doctor-" Ryan said, but she was already making her way in, ducking under some tripwire that only she could see.

All they could do was watch. If it wasn't so nerve-wracking, the scene would be hilarious; a woman carefully picking her way through Stonehenge, goose-stepping over nothing, doing limbo under an imaginary pole, dancing her way through a maze of nonexistent laser beams.

But the laser beams were real. The cost of bumping one would be instant and likely fatal. And they couldn't do a thing to help her, couldn't do anything but huddle there, too scared to breathe.

And then she made exactly the wrong move. The first any of them knew about it was the thin line that opened along the Doctor's forearm. She hissed in pain, yanked it back. Blood dripped from the wound. Or, no, not blood. Blood wasn't black, or filled with stars. The Doctor glared at it. "Well, that's going to be difficult to fix," she muttered. She glanced back at the three humans standing outside the henge, absolutely petrified. She sighed. "Alright, then. I suppose the cat's well out of the bag by now. Just… don't panic, alright? It'll all be right in the end, cross my hearts."

"What's she on about?" Graham asked.

The Doctor swiveled around. Or, that wasn't quite right. She was staying completely still. But she gave off the impression of slowly turning in a tight circle. And as she turned, she changed, growing taller with each passing moment. That was the least of it, though. Her face… rippled. A third eye appeared in the middle of her forehead, and her mouth stretched wide. The shadows cast by her hair over her ears deepened until they were as black as the void, giving the impression that the Doctor's face was floating above nothing at all.

Her hair stretched into many waving golden tentacles, and from the waist down, she looked rather like an octopus. Her coat flowed out behind her like a cape, and it seemed that a piece of the night sky had been stitched into the lining.

She turned to face them and grinned and she was beautiful and shining and terrible, yes, but more than anything, she radiated kindness, as much as she ever had. "Not freaking out yet? Good. Hate for you to miss the best part."

"Which… which part would that be?" Yaz asked.

The Doctor's grin only widened, and the air around her began to glow gold. The fractured timelines went up like candles, golden light tracing fractal patterns in the air, and now they could see how time was out of joint, zones moving slower or faster or in reverse. None moving down the wrong paths though, which was good. How did they know that?

And then the Doctor reached out and grabbed the threads and twisted and

She was standing right in the middle of Stonehenge, tossing half a rock into the air and catching it. She smiled at them, but her eyes were deeply concerned. "Er. Ta-da?"

Ryan took a step back. "I- you-"

The Doctor's smile fell slowly.

Ryan shook his head. "That was well amazing," he said.

Just like that, the spell was broken. "Doctor, your arm!" Yaz said, rushing forward.

The Doctor raised her other hand to forestall her companion. "It's fine, not deep at all," she assured her. "I'll put a plaster on it back at the TARDIS."

"What exactly just happened?" Graham demanded. "Like, if you can turn into some giant tentacle thing to save the day, why the hell don't you do that on the reg?"

"Well, for a start, I can only really slip up my dimensions on that level when time and space are already pretty muddled up," the Doctor replied lightly, slipping her coat back on. "Besides, people tend to look askance at that sort of thing."

"We didn't," Yaz said.

"True," the Doctor agreed. "Hardly any of my companions ever did, except that time when Leela was convinced I was actually a monster that hadeaten the Doctor. But ordinary folk, them as don't know me… well, they don't tend to react so well. Lots of calls to the army and mobs with pitchforks and general carrying on" She smiled and bumped shoulders with Yaz. "Course, now that you all know, I can let down my guard a little more when there's no one else about." She winked, and for a second the whites of her eyes were pitch black and full of stars.

"Oh good," Graham said faintly.

Yaz wrapped an arm around the Doctor's neck. "C'mon, you. You might not think much of that cut, but we'll want to bandage it before it gets infected."

"Alright, alright," the Doctor said, waving her injured arm. "Quick step, back to the TARDIS for first-aid and lunch."

Ryan was staring at her arm. He raised his hand. "Uh, Doctor?"

"Yeah?" She glanced down. Her arm was still a very long tentacle. "Ah. Perhaps a bit more than first-aid, then."

She started off at a jog. "C'mon fam! We're wasting daylight!"

They all looked at each other. Ryan grinned. "You heard her. Let's be off."

So they ran, smiling and laughing, back to their home; three humans running after an alien - ancient, unearthly, at times incomprehensible - who was, nonetheless, still deeply human where it counted.


End file.
